Weightlifter Prapawadee Wins First Olympic Gold For Thailand

[george]

Weightlifter Prapawadee wins first Olympic gold for Thailand

Weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon wins first gold medal for Thailand in the women's 53kg division in the Beijing Olympic.

The Nakhon Sawan native managed to lift 95kg in the snatch and set the new Olympic clean and jerk record at 126kg. She claimed the top spot with aggregate lifts of 221kg.

-- The Nation 2008-08-1-

Prapawadee wins Thailand's first gold medal at Olympics

BEIJING: -- Thailand's Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakul won the Olympic gold medal in the women's 53kg weightlifting on Sunday, the first gold medal so far for Thailand in the games.

Yoon Jin-hee of South Korea won the silver and Nastassia Novikava won the bronze for Belarus.

Thailand aims to win four medals in weightlifting in Beijing. However, two of the country's top medal hopes failed to finish in the top three at the games on Saturday.

Premsiri Bunpithak and Pensiri Laosirikul failed to finish in the top three at the Beijing Olympics.

Ms. Pensiri only finished fifth, while Ms. Premsiri failed to make a single success in three attempts in the snatch category and was eliminated in the 48kg division.

The Thai female weightlifting squad claimed two gold and two bronze medals in weightlifting at the 2004 Games.

Athens bronze medallist Wandee Kamaeim is the only female lifter remaining from the 2004 Olympics. She will take part in the 58kg division in Beijing on Monday.

-- TNA 2008-08-10

[dingdongrb]

Congrats to Thailand and Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon on bringing home Thailand's first medal and GOLD it was!!!

I forget the girl’s name that was playing the Chinese girl in badminton this morning but I was rooting for Thailand all the way, too bad she fell short in the last game of the match.

[sriracha john]

One tough woman....

Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon of Thailand reacts while holding up a new Olympic record lift of 126 kilograms in clean and jerk, to win the gold medal of the women's 53 kg category of the weightlifting competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Sunday. Aug. 10, 2008.

Associated Press

[dingdongrb]

It looks as though the Thailand Google folks have paid a tribute to Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon as well.....

[wintermute]

She's awesome. Thailand has pretty much neglected sports outside of the usual bungling Thai soccer team nonsense and the only thing they really excel at is boxing and muay thai. So it's great to see someone like her come out of nowhere and show that a non commercialized pro can still make it happen in the Olympics.

[Groongthep]

Big congrats to Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon and Thailand on the gold medal performance. I hope this becomes a catalyst to promote more sports programs and other healthy activities for the kids in Thailand.

[sriracha john]

She's awesome. Thailand has pretty much neglected sports outside of the usual bungling Thai soccer team nonsense and the only thing they really excel at is boxing and muay thai. So it's great to see someone like her come out of nowhere and show that a non commercialized pro can still make it happen in the Olympics.

Thai news ran a special on her family... and their story is literally movie material.

Her Dad works very long hours as a motorcycle-mounted fried hot dog/crab stick vendor... a more humble and diligent man you won't meet. The news crew filmed them at a neighborhood gathering of family and friends with the ubiquitous outdoor TV in a rural area (in Nakhon Sawan, btw) to see her break the world record live on TV... with cameras and microphones jammed at them... Dad fiercely fought back tears of pride and joy... while Mom sits next to him and begins saying a few words to reporters before the significance of the event evidently truly sinks in...hits... her voice tightens... and she flat out faints and slumps to the floor.... EMT's removed her and later revived her... It was all so heart-wrenchingly very real.

This woman from a nothing background to take OLYMPIC GOLD, who only recently recovered from a severe injury to her whole left arm that occurred at another weight-lifting event recently and for which they showed a clip of on the program... while lifting and she was going for the clean, her left arm collapsed as it looked like her bicep had ruptured... taken off in a stretcher. Then return to training.... and eventually, Beijing.

From this she comes out of nowhere... and commences to exceed the highest weight ever hoisted by anyone of her dimensions. You could legitimately consider her the strongest woman in the world at 52 kilos.

Heck of a story...

Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon...

Heck of a name...

Edited August 10, 2008 by sriracha john

[wintermute]

Yeah it's incredible. It's mindboggling actually. Most people don't know how hard these athletes train and at what level their sacrifice is. I know someone who tried for YEARS to qualify for the U.S. wrestling team. He was very good too a state champion but he just wasn't able to make it happen during qualification. He never made it to the team but it just goes to show how there are often hundreds of athletes in one country all competing for a slot.

Now for them to go to the olympics and then compete against athletes worldwide you realize how elite it is to win a gold medal in any discipline. Weightlifting is highly competitive. There are really only a dozen or so countries that have the resources and training to produce elite weightlifters at any weight. For this woman to come out of nowhere in a country like Thailand where weightlifting isn't all that revered as a sport it becomes apparent how unusual that is.

She truly is unusual and it's even more fascinating considering her background.

[sriracha john]

There's Mom and Pop on the left side of the poo-yai couch dressed in their newly-provided silk finery.... moving up in life...

watching the TV as their daughter succeeds against all odds... I couldn't help but notice how physically scrawny Pop was and Mom was not much... but the beauty of DNA is that together, they created the world's strongest woman.

Edited August 10, 2008 by sriracha john

[Goshawk]

not bad.. perhaps soon she'll surpass the mighty Pawina Thongsuk ?

[LaoPo]

Her Biopgraphy in sports:

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/BIO/.../9/230229.shtml

LaoPo

[sriracha john]

Brawn AND brains...

Prapawadee: Hometown girl conquers Olympics

Nakhon Sawan - Her mother fainted and more than 300 people watching the action on a giant screen set up in their village in tambon Nong Pling erupted with joy the moment weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanakoon broke the Olympic record and won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics yesterday. Prapawadee, 24, was all smiles atop the podium with Thailand's first gold from the Beijing Games around her neck. The Thai national anthem was played and all her relatives and friends back home in Nakhon Sawan's Muang district sang along loud and clear. Rasi, Prapawadee's mother, was taken to Sawan Pracharak hospital, where she was quickly revived. Her father Chankaew said Nong Kae phoned him at 6am to ask for his blessing before the contest. He told her to "fight, fight, fight". He was speechless with pride after Prapawadee set the Olympic record of 126kg in the clean and jerk for a winning total of 221kg. Prapawadee took up weightlifting at the age of nine and won the world youth championship when she was 18. However, she did not make the 2004 Olympic team as she contested the same category as rising star Udomporn Polsak, who later won the 53kg gold in Athens. Her hopes were again dashed in 2007 when she sustained an elbow injury and had to withdraw from the SEA Games in Nakhon Ratchasima. Despite all the obstacles, Prapawadee stuck to her training and fitness routines as she waited for her big break. It was an exciting gathering in her hometown yesterday, with a giant screen, a big tent and catering by the Nong Pling tambon administration organisation and her relatives. Beverages were provided by sponsors. Among the cheering crowd was the provincial Deputy Governor Wiboonchai Kerdpermpoon, who vowed to send a procession to greet her at Suvarnabhumi airport and to stage a welcome-home party in Nong Pling. As well as her sporting goals, Prapawadee is studying for a master's degree at

Continued here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=129505

[owl sees all]

Wonderful. She did her best lifts well before the 2008 Olympics. Left the sport in 2012.

 

Any sporting life after weight-lifting? What's she up to now?